XIV century

A masterpiece of Gothic sculpture, of the Pisan school with French influence, depicting the Annunciation: on the left, the Messenger Angel showing a papyrus with what remains of the words “Ave Gratia Plena”, on the right, the Virgin Mary.

The two statues are carved into Statuario marble, the famous “Carrara White”, while the two pedestals – of a more recent period – are in ordinary white (see Chart N# 18 “The marbles of the Cathedral”). From the archived documents, we know that the Confraternity of the Annunciation was present in the Cathedral already from the XV century. In fact, in 1447, the vicar Leonardo Agestini offered the Altar of the Annunciation to the confraternity of the “disciplinati”. It is the altar for which, in the second decade of the XIV century, the Annunciation of Lapo di Maestro Giroldo (see photo here below) must have been sculpted. The work was replaced, after the establishment of the confraternity, by the other Annunciation group, known by the name of le Cassanelle. Probably, this name is linked to Gassano (not far from Carrara), the village of Bartolomeo Vasi, artist and benefactor of the Church, sculptor of the holy water font on the right, near St John’s side door, on which his name is engraved, and that, on its “foot” has sculpted the “wheel”, symbol of Carrara.

In the Cistercian Abbey of Heiligenkreuz, small town of Wienerwald near Vienna, an identical copy of this marble group can be admired. It had been commissioned by the Abbot of that Church in the attempt to restore the original harmonic style of the Austrian abbey structure, that during the last war had been ransacked of many pieces in Gothic style.